Theology Quiz

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Pastor Mike Abendroth here, recording the first show with the new equipment with the Saturday guy. That�s exciting, man.

That is so cool.

New equipment. Right on. It looks pretty impressive, doesn�t it? It does, you know, except I would say, you know, kind of like the colors are very... Pastely. Yeah, pastel. But you know what? True confession, because I�ve been confessing all weekend.

Oh, I heard about those confessions. I like pastels. Now, how about suits? Do you have any suits with pastel mats? Nein, danke. When you started giving me some German, you are listening to or you�re learning Spanish on Duolingo.

How many days in a row have you gone?

I think it�s about 1 ,007 or something like that.

Did you miss any or did you miss some and they give you that little freeze thing?

I missed, you know, again, you know, it�s true confession time. I missed some early on and so I had the, you know, where you could use some points and get, you know, out of jail thing. So kind of bridging it or something.

Yeah. But now, I don�t even know when the last time I missed. I mean, it�s been a long, long time because I just make sure I do it at some point during the day.

I think a few nights ago, it was 11 .40 p .m. and then I did it and they said, �You got your streak continued with six minutes to go. Kim is doing Italian, I�m doing modern Hebrew. I started with Latin, but I thought, �You know what?

I�m not going to Latania soon. I�m going to Israel soon, so I bet I should probably make this functional. Are you still on the freebie? Still doing it on the freebie? I�ve got the two-week upgrade for free if I want to do it.

I think that ends today, as a matter of fact.

I think, I mean, I really like not being on the free thing anymore.

Oh, well, I got so frustrated because it starts getting harder. There�s no possible way I�m going to make less than five mistakes. And now in Hebrew written from right to left, crazy. Yeah. Steve, it�s important to train up men for gospel ministry, of course.

That�s 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 2 and following, what�s their soldier, athlete, farmer language, then remember Christ Jesus, remember Jesus Christ. I�ve got a preaching class here and I wanted to know what the men understood when it comes to theology.

So today we�re going to go over my test that I gave them on different definitions of theological terms. Okay, do it. And so this is called preaching discipleship quiz. They had to write their name on the top.

How many of them missed that? So far, so good. Sometimes remember in school, people would not put their names on there. Yes, I do.

Yeah. I mean, I�ve even corrected papers that had no name on the top and you�re just like, what am I supposed to do with this? I�ve been through the desert.

On a test with no name. And then at the bottom it says, �Over for more questions. And then I handed these out and I said, �Please write your name and don�t forget there�s a backside to this.

Oh, how many guys forgot the back? None. All right.

So they actually listened. Well, that�s probably the number one goal in discipleship is you�ve learned.

I mean, there�s nothing more delightful than, you know, people, students who listen.

I like that. Isn�t that the Shema,. �Hear, O Israel, listen up, pay attention. You better get it right. All right. Do you know the Shema in Hebrew? In Hebrew?

No, I do not. No. I might have while I was, you know, in school, but I.

Luke sometimes says that to me and I�m thinking, how do you know more Hebrew than I do?

Well, when you stay current on it, I mean, like I did Hebrew reading in summer school, right? I mean, so I was, at one point I was pretty good, right? I could sit there in the class and actually read Hebrew and the professor didn�t even throw things at me.

Please define justification. And so what we�re going to do, Steve, on this show is I could ask you to define it, but I�m going to read what one of my students said and then we can talk about it. Yeah, that�ll be fun.

So here�s what one of the students said, �Act of God. And by the way, I told them, you know, we only have 15 minutes for this, so give me short answers. Yeah, okay. So we won�t dock them on that. Act of God declaring sinners just after imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

That�s, that�s, you don�t. It�s partially true. Yeah.

It�s just not all the way complete. Right. Yeah. I liked it that he said, �Act of God and declaring sinners. Yes. Right? That�s important. After imputation. I don�t know if I would say after. After.

Yeah. I sort of wondered about that too. And then, of course, there�s another imputation and that is our sins imputed to the account of Christ. Yeah. So we need to have both of those or it�s not a real justification.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Let�s look at another student�s on justification. He said, �One-time event. Beautiful. �Being declared maybe he just said �declared �righteous before God, our standing before God from guilty and condemned to innocent forgiven.

No more condemnation by Christ�s substituent death for my sins and His imputed righteousness.

Yeah. Good. Except for I would say, you know, it�s more than God declaring us innocent. He declares us righteous. Okay. Very good. Here�s another one. �The act. Well, at least it�s not process. We�re not Rome, are we?

No, we�re not. You know, well, I actually mentioned, without using the word, you�d have been so proud of me, �supererogation. I didn�t use the word, but I was talking about it on Sunday morning as a means of possibly, you know, being right with God apart from Christ.

Mm.

I kind of like those extra or those super works. Okay. Sorry. No, it�s all right. I like that. The act by which God legally declares a sinner perfectly righteous by Christ�s perfect work and saves them.

That�s pretty good. Yeah, but still doesn�t have, let�s see, oh, by Christ�s perfect work. Okay. Yeah. All right. I like that.

Justice has been. I mean, especially, sorry to interrupt, but especially when you think about, you know, time constraints and they�re like, how can I answer all these questions and I got to, you know, so that�s pretty good.

So, you�re more merciful than I am.

I�m very merciful. Justice has been satisfied. The debt I owed Christ has paid on my behalf. I have been set free by his work. That�s half of it. Yeah. I know. I�m looking at this guy�s name. Yeah. Maybe he should know better.

All right. Let�s see what this guy says. An act of God to make us right with him. Okay. Do we want the make or declare? Yeah, declare. If we say make in a Romans 5 constituted, I might give him a pass, but we try to stay away from make.

Because make does sound process-y. It could lead it to something.

Uh-huh. By Christ�s actions on the cross, not ours. Well, he�s got an act of God, at least. Yep. And let�s just say we�re declared right with him by Christ�s actions on the cross.

I mean, I�m not knocking anybody because I understand the pressure. And, you know, and they didn�t get to, you know, study for this the night before. This wasn�t like a cram session or anything like that.

What I told them, Steve, the week before was, I�m going to give you a test on the nature of Christ�s work.

So you�re familiar with it. That�s all they knew. They didn�t know what... So maybe they could have done, you know, some studying or whatever. But I guess the only reason I register any disappointment at all is because we give these definitions, right, a lot.

I mean... Weekly. Yeah. Yeah.

So... It�s going to add a little bit. It�s not going to be perfect, but it adds some. What is the definition of justification? Today on No Compromise Radio, talking about preaching discipleship, what people should know if they�re going to preach.

If you�re going to stand up and preach, you should know these things. God declaring just in his sight through the work of Jesus Christ. This happens by faith alone. So now we have justification by faith alone, right?

This is sola fide. The other men didn�t tell us how we receive Christ�s work, but he gave us faith alone. I like that. Yeah, that�s pretty good. Okay.

Here we go. I�m expecting a lot out of this guy. Yeah, me too. If this isn�t a 100 correct answer, I�m going to be sorely disappointed.

God declaring sinners right with himself by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to that believer and the imputation of the sinner�s sins to Christ. The sinner is now seen righteous before God because the foundation of his standing before God is Christ�s righteousness.

Well, if I was giving it on a scale of 1 to 10, I�d probably give that like a 9 .8.

Maybe you could have said something about faith, but I didn�t say how to receive it. I also like it that he talks about the foundation because I regularly talk about that, Steve, and so do you. There�s a difference between the foundation on which we stand before God and the evidence and fruit of his work in our lives because that�s where everybody seems to make mistakes.

Yes. Okay, good. Well, this is kind of fun so far. Let�s keep going. All right, this young man should know. He should definitely know. The act of God in declaring a sinner righteous through the act of double imputation, Christ taking our sins and we receive his righteousness.

God is declaring that we are righteous in Christ�s robes by his obedience.

Yeah, I have to go for that one. I think that�s a tenor there.

All right, now we�re moving to the next one. Please define sanctification. Now, before I read any of these, here�s probably what we�re going to get, Steve. We�re probably going to get something about our holy living as Christians, our obedience, our striving, sweating, toiling, evangelizing, doing one another�s, something about the mortification of our sins and the vivification of us to live righteously.

But I�m wondering if they�re going to have sanctification as God�s work alone. Probably not.

One guy might get it, but I don�t know.

I�m not too optimistic. Well, see, even as pastors, as you know, you preach for me Sunday. Thank you for that. We have to keep repeating things over and over and over, right? Even when it comes now to Duolingo, how do you learn a language?

It�s repetition. The Hebrew stuff I was learning last night was, you are eating and your mother is eating. You and your mom are eating. You eat. Your mother eats. You know, just over and over and over by repetition.

Now, if that process is God�s work and our response is faith and then mortification, vivification, I�d be fine with that. All right.

I wonder what our listeners would say. We should have asked them first. Could have had like a Ligonier survey kind of thing. Right.

Remember Bible Answer Man with Hank Hanegraaff? And I even listened to it when it was Walter Martin. Somebody to ask a question to the Bible Answer Man.

The only one in the universe.

And then I would kind of turn down the radio in the car and see if I knew the answer. I could still hear Hank Hanegraaff talking about how he was a pan-millennialist and it would all pan out. How did that work out for him?

Not too well. Is he still in the Greek Orthodox movement? Hank Hanegraaff. I don�t know. You know, I stopped.

I don�t even know if it�s on the air anymore. You might have to go on the internet or something or the dark web. I don�t know. I don�t know where you get that show. Seriously. Right. I know. Yeah.

Okay. Next student here. Sanctification. Separated unto God, saved from the power of sin, initial sanctification and progressive sanctification, new desires, not sinless but sinning less, growing in holiness and in Christlikeness, ongoing event until we die and are united with Christ.

I mean, that�s pretty good.

I give a seven and a half. You know, I mean, that�s okay.

Well, this is actually what I�m going to do with my class on Sunday, right? We�re going to go over this a little bit to make sure they get it down. Sanctification. The process of the Holy Spirit continually purifying the saint which will not be perfected in this life but the next.

Oh, boy. I�ll tell you what. That�s pretty good right there. He didn�t say mortification, vivification, but fine by me. Yeah. I pretty much like that one. Uh-huh. The process. And what I meant was sanctification of the progressive nature where God is working in us, not the initial definitive, you�re washed, sanctified, and justified 1 Corinthians 6 stuff.

Okay. Yeah, that was really good. Sanctification. The work of Christ in me, making me less and he greater or him greater. That�s pretty good. Uh-huh. Well, what do we often talk about on No Compromise Radio?

Duplex gratia. Christ for pardon, justification. Christ for power, sanctification. I don�t know.

Right here, the power in me. When I hear duplex gratia, you know, what I instantly go to is some kind of like, it sounds like self-defense, you know, I�m going to give you a little duplex. I feel like I�m about to get hammered into the mat.

Do I dare do it? You just did. I had the sound down too hard. Yeah, for you kids at home, you know, you got to watch out now. Pastor Mike�s got sound effects.

Things are about to get ugly. Well, we�re going to have message moment music on here. We�re going to have Ben Withers, that song, I Know, because that�s the Corinthians.

I know. I can�t wait for it, you know, because you really have to have somebody record. Actually, you know, this message moment.

I would just slam in somebody�s word over the song. Who sang that? The Drifters?

No, I, you know, it�s funny because I just saw that song not too long ago on a list of, oh, I know who posted it, but yeah.

This magic moment. Did you say the Coasters? Who did you say it was? Ben E. King and the Drifters. The Drifters? Did I? I think I said the Drifters. I don�t know if that�s right, though. Uh-huh. Maybe it is.

Jay and the Americans? America. Okay, we�re talking about definitional terms. And one of the reasons why we want you to know these terms, so when you read them in the Bible, because you�ll see both of these so far in the Bible, you�ll know what they are.

When you read theological bush, bushes, you�ll know what�s in the bush. It�s burning. Take your sandals off. But also, it helps you when you think about your salvation and you look at it and you think, oh, yes, before the court of God�s justice, I�m as perfect as Jesus is.

He accepts me. And there�s a practical application of this, don�t you think? Yes, I do. Devotional, absolutely. Sanctification, the process, done by God, he loves commas, of making us more holy or making us more Christlike.

Off with the old, on with the new. Hey, that�s not bad at all. Done by God. Yeah. Monergistic sanctification. Well, I�m actually pretty pleasantly surprised by these answers.

Uh-huh, because we know some of these people�s backgrounds, and you know, we all walk in, we need to learn, we need to grow. Yeah. All right. That�s really good. Sanctification, this is the transforming work of God to conform us to the image of Jesus.

Do you know what? These answers are better than I would have given five years ago.

I mean, I�m very impressed.

Well, you know, you better be killing sin or it�ll be killing you. Ooh, preach. No, that�s actually true. Sanctification, here we go. This guy�s written so much, he�s like drawn lines and stuff.

Yeah, turnover, you know. Continued on back page.

Sanctification means to be set apart. We�re initially sanctified at the moment of our salvation because we had been set apart for salvation by God. We are also progressively sanctified after salvation by the Holy Spirit as He produces fruit in our lives.

I�m going to have to give that a 10 .5.

Wow, come on. That was really good. Uh-huh. Yeah. That�s like Westminster Shorter, 35.

And it would be the Westminster Really Shorter.

Okay, let�s see what�s Westminster Shorter. Is it 35? What is sanctification? I want you to grade this. Okay, I�ll grade this. Sanctification is the work of God�s free grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of a God and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, that�s mortification, and live unto righteousness, vivification.

See, I want to take off some points because it was too long. If it�s supposed to be the Shorter Catechism, that was too long.

Sanctification, the sole act of God, so far so good. Yeah, loving it. Via the Holy Spirit in gradually restoring the broken image of God and creating a new man in the form of the second Adam. Wow. These are just lay guys.

That�s pretty fun, isn�t it? Yeah, that�s pretty good. I know. Well, we have some time to go. You know, our old digital recorder used to sit here and now I have to look up at that thing.

Okay, well, that�s something that�s going to have to get fixed.

I still remember some of the reviews on iTunes, No Compromise Radio. They are, he just sits in the room by himself talking and laughing at his own jokes, their own jokes. But isn�t that what we do?

I think that�s, shouldn�t that be like the subtitle of the show? No Compromise Radio, laughing at our own jokes. I must be tired. Snorting in Solomon Day. You know, I mean, it�s like... Everything�s funny.

All right, Preaching Discipleship Quiz, justification, sanctification, and now number three, redemption. And if you�re listening, what you do is you hear words and you try to think of equivalence or root words or something like that.

Pastor Steve, what are some ways we use redemption in our society today outside the theological realm?

Well, I mean, hey, you got a can or a bottle, you know, you take it back in there and you get your money back, right? You redeem it. So that�s one way that we use that. Let�s see, what else do we redeem?

You are old enough to probably remember.

Yeah, blue chip and green stamps. SNH green stamps. Yeah, I can remember actually, you know, getting stuff. I think we got like a Hot Wheels set or something out of that, you know, just tons of... Because you used to get those stamps everywhere you went, you know, whether it was the grocery store or whether it was the gas station.

And I mean, when you think about it, what a racket. It was like the, you know, the Miles redemption program kind of thing before there were miles,.

Airplane miles or anything. Steve, when you were growing up, same time I was growing up, there were different kinds of bubble gum. There was Bazooka Joe. There was Hubba Bubba. I don�t think there was some of the newer ones.

I forgot what, Bubbalicious or something. Yabba Dabba. But I remember if you saved the little comic on the inside, because remember there was an outside wrapper, you open it up and there was a comic on the inside and then you could read it.

And if you saved 100 of those, you could get a t-shirt, a Bazooka Joe t-shirt. So they even had those redemption things. Yeah, I never made 100. Come on. And of course, if we think of maybe the civil war or in Africa or something like that with slavery, somebody is redeemed.

There's a price that's paid to free them from their bondage. So that's what we're going to look for in these. There's a price that's called the ransom, and they're released from bondage. Israel, if they heard the word redemption, what would they think of?

Slavery. Yeah, that they were bought out of the slavery of Egypt. Slave market. Yeah, exactly right. You're right. Redemption. Here's the students. God saving sinners from fallen state in Adam. Okay.

Yeah, it's not terrible. We're looking for words though, bought, free, released. Yeah. Redemption.

This guy should know here, let's see. Brought from spiritual death to life. I wish he would have said bought. From slave of sin. Okay. Slaves are redeemed. And child of wrath to being free from sin. Okay, good.

And slave of righteousness and child of God. A little Roman six action in there. You're going to be a slave to somebody. I sat and listened to Dwight Pentecost, maybe with you at Mount Hermon, teaching Roman six.

And he said, there's no such thing as free will. And I about fell off the chair, the pew chair. For a DTS guy.

Yeah. Well, he knows now, he's been affirmed in that view.

That is very true. We are redeemed from our state in Adam by Christ's perfect work into a state of harmony and fellowship with God and adopted. That could probably use some work. Yeah. Okay. The blood of Christ has paid the price to set me free.

Okay. There's the ransom price is the blood of Christ. That I might be restored to relationship with God, the Father. Okay. That sounds New England-ish. You go down Cape, down cellar, restored with God.

It's pretty good though. Restored to relationship. Okay. All right. Redemption, God's process of redeeming or taking his children from the world and into his son, Jesus, eventually into heaven. We're only laughing at you, not with you.

Yeah. The process part really gets it off to a bad start. Okay. Let's take, what about this guy here?

He came out of a cult. Let's see if he knows it better. This refers to the price that Jesus paid to free us from the wrath of God and slavery to it. God purchased us with his blood, his son's blood. Okay.

Purchase. Purchase. Redemption. Okay. Yeah. Redemption, the purchase of God for every believer.

Redeemed, how I love to work on it. There you go.

Redemption is God's work of saving a sinner. The father elects, the son redeems by obeying in the place of the elect and dying in their place, and the Holy Spirit applies salvation to the elect. I think I'm going to have to teach a little bit about redemption.

Yeah. Okay, we have 30 seconds. An overarching phrase describing God's commitment to plan and execute a way for sinners to be with him. This is done in time and history and can be traced through the seed of Genesis all the way through Revelation.

Obviously, there's more teaching that needs to happen here. These guys are reading too much into it.

Well, thank you for tuning in today on No Compromise Radio. Pastor Steve and Mike talking today about discipleship quiz and preaching. And why don't you get, what's your favorite dictionary that has theological terms?

Favorite dictionary that has, I don't know, the pocket dictionary of theological terms. Okay, we'll take it.

Thank you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.